


from a creek we used to roam

by WDW



Series: buying gold [2]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Amnesia, Gen, Identity Issues, Present Tense, one and the same au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-28
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-23 12:17:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6116208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WDW/pseuds/WDW
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s hard being Stanley Pines.   </p><p>(some days, he isn’t.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. full of broken thoughts

**Author's Note:**

> Half "my own headcanons on how the memory gun worked", half Stan's side of the previous work in the series. Don't worry guys... Bill (or what's left of him) will be rearing his head soon enough.
> 
> Written in present tense, because I'm trying new things with my writing. Let me know how it works out!
> 
> [Title from 'Stressed Out' by Twenty One Pilots, which is a pretty fitting song for these two]

It happens like this:

There’s the faintest whiff of pine sap in the air when he opens his eyes, blearily, against the piercing brightness of unfiltered sunlight. It’s quiet except for the occasional rustle of leaves, and with the fuzzy, comforting calm that blankets his mind, he feels no need at all to move from his spot in the woods.

That’s when they come for him: an old man in an ill-fitting suit and raw devastation on his worn face, a bright pastel girl with a widely grinning mouth of shining metal, a stumbling boy with a cap and red-rimmed eyes. They say to him, ‘Grunkle Stan, it’s me, don’t you remember?’ and, ‘Stanley, I’m sorry, I should’ve,’ and, “Please come back.”

When they tell him that he’s a hero, he smiles at them. They cry when he asks them, what for?

But they are all very nice to him, even though he doesn’t understand what they’re talking about, although he feels bad because nothing he says seems to make them smile. But he doesn’t apologize anymore. Not after he tells the old man who said he was his brother that he was sorry for forgetting, and sees his large frame crumple like newspaper in the rain.

He thinks he might hate Stanley Pines, whoever he is.

They walk him through the woods to somewhere new. It’s nice because the kids hold his hands, their warm palms startling small in his own. His brother puts his black suit jacket on his shoulders as they walk, and tells him quietly that it’s his.

Along the way, he meets another man, one who looks very different from Ford and Dipper and Mabel, but they tell him that he is family nonetheless. The man sobs wretchedly when the kids explain, and through his tears, calls him something else on accident. It has one syllable, but doesn’t sound anything like ‘Stan.’

He is led to a house that smells vaguely of burned up oil and rusty metal, with cracked glass windows and a half-collapsed roof. It’s slumped a bit sideways, but it stands despite its crumbling walls and creaking foundations. He’s a bit nervous about walking in, but his family seemed to have a faith in the old place that he doesn’t have.

Inside is a familiar couch that sags in warm welcome under his weight. The girl thrusts a pink scrapbook under his nose, hope clear and gleaming in her eyes, and there’s pictures in there of the kids with a man who looked like his brother, who was wearing the same red fez that teetered on his own head.

There is a heavy knot of guilt weighing down in his gut when he stares hard at each colorful page and tries to recall emotions and memories from uncharted regions of his mind, then realizes that he cannot.

He starts to tell them so, regret heavy in his voice, when a pig jumps on his lap.

... _Waddles_ is on his lap, slobbering all over his face with his disgusting swine saliva.

Stan pulls the pig off of him and as far away from his face as possible in one fluid motion, his body moving as if possessed by some force other than himself, because this was not the _damn_ time - not when his family was moping around like someone _died_ or something, all because of this damn amnesia that was messing him up.

Waddles just stares at him with his little beady pig eyes, even as Stan shouts directly at his perky snout, and hell, maybe he shouldn’t have punched that pterodactyl after all - what do you think about _that_ , pig?

A few feet away, Soos says something about boss-employee relationships, and geez, did he think Stan was made of money? The kid’s already _got_ a raise, and sure it’s been a few years since then, but hey -

And then he stops in his tracks, whatever presence in control of his arms and limbs receding back underneath the dim fog that obscured most of his mind, leaving Stan (?) standing awkwardly in the middle of the living room, a pink pig held loosely in his hands. He claws after it mentally because he _needs_ it back, because _they_ are staring at him with a kind of incredulous hope and there are tearful _smiles_ on their faces, and it wasn’t him they wanted.

Whoever he was.

But it’s gone, and he’s left only with a vague sense of emptiness and the sour aftertaste of defeat in his dry mouth.

“I, uh,” he says out loud, and then Mabel is squealing and dragging him back to the couch and Dipper has his arms around his neck in a ~~choke hold~~ hug. Ford leans over his shoulder, smiling, and Soos is making choked noises of happiness while simultaneously ruining his suit with snot ~~damn it Soos, this is coming out of your next paycheck~~ , and.

He knows them. He knows _them_ , even if he doesn’t know himself. Mabel and Dipper and Soos and - _poindexter, fordsy, sixer, six-fingers_ \- Ford. His family.

When Mabel starts flipping through the scrapbook again, the only stranger he sees in those pictures is himself.

It isn’t so bad, he thinks - _Stan_ thinks.

So what if he isn’t Stanley Pines? Big deal. The guy seemed like a bit of a mess anyways, with everything the kids were saying about stealing wax figures and punching teenagers.

But if a screw-up like Stanley Pines could make his family so happy, and make even a grumpy nerd like Ford smile this wide…

...Maybe he could try to be him.


	2. all good devils

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aka FINALLY (I swear, I'll get the next chapter of ATNS out next!)
> 
> I ended up shifting in tone a bit in this chapter because it just didn't come out the way I wanted it to. Better than another month long wait, at least. (THIS IS AN EXPERIMENT, I keep telling myself.)

It’s easier to pretend when he’s with the kids.  Stan remembers more of this summer than anything else, remembers more of _them_ than anyone else, and while that spark of identity stubbornly refuses to resurface, there’s enough floating around in his head for him to keep up the masquerade.  Anything to keep Dipper smiling proudly and Mabel beaming, brighter than a shooting star.   

Stan doesn’t know for sure, but he thinks this is not the first time he’s lied to his family for their own sakes.  It comes too easily to be.  

Besides, it wasn’t exactly lying.  More like omitting… some of the truth.  Stan did remember some things.  Like the kids, and Soos and Wendy.  Even that damn pig.  Even _Ford_ , who he knew but doesn’t know, who occupied the same unsteady part of his mind as piańo͠ ̀m͢úsic̢, sailboats, and the feeling of ço̷nfin̡e̸meńt, rope chafing his wrists raw behind his back.

Just.  Not anything of the life that had brought him to this broken down little shack in the woods, with the unfamiliar, gut-deep sensation of being surrounded by people who love him unconditionally.  In _that_ particular aspect, Stan’s progress was a bit… slow-going sure, let’s go with that.  

But there are sparks, occasional and sporadic.  He finds his hand reaching to ruffle Pine Tree’s hair without thinking, and the words ‘sweetie’ and ‘pumpkin’ just slip out naturally when he sees Mabel’ s wide smiles.  It feels instinctive to mess with Ford with a slap on the back and a flick of his nose, to call him a ‘nerd’ and a ‘regular ol’ poindexter.’ An inexplicable warmness slips into his voice whenever Soos is involved, one that feels just as easy and comfortable as telling the handyman to fix the newest leak in the sewage pipe.    

It’s things like these that make Stan think that…  hell, maybe it _is_ just a matter of time before Stanley Pines was back to stay.  The real Stanley, the man who owned the sharp black suits and the cane that felt so familiar in his hands, who haunted his existence like a specter.  Because Stan…

Stan couldn’t live up to who he was supposed to be.  Because, some things he gets wrong, no matter how hard he tries.  

At least with the kids Stan knows where he messed up, because they tell him - like when Dipper reassures him the hairs are _supposed_ to be in the Stancakes, or when Mabel corrects him on the name of her grandfather - Shermy, his own brother _._  They are tirelessly forgiving on the bad days, when dates and places slip through his futile grasp like so much water.  Stan thinks that maybe, they just want to believe that everything will be fine.  Not that he would ever hint otherwise.

His brother, on the other hand…

It quickly becomes apparent to Stan that while the vast majority of memories he shared with the rest of his family was incontrovertibly positive, Ford Pines was the notable exception.  

There was a history here, one that Stan didn’t remember much any of and Ford was none too willing to share.  Regardless, there remained a whole bunch of convoluted, half-remembered emotions on Stan’s part.  There was love, no argument about that, but there was also anger and jealousy and an old, sour bitterness.  But above all, there was possessiveness, a current of it which ran deep and hot, because despite everything, Fordsy was _his_ , and the thought of something, anything messing with him sent the cold burn of rage coursing through his veins.

Stan occasionally catches Ford staring at him out of the side of his vision, eyes dark with guilt and fear tight in the thin line of his mouth. The one time he finally mustered up the courage to ask questions about their shared history, his brother had paled with stunning alacrity, panic flashing across his face as he made weak excuses to leave the room.  

Yet, he still remembers the Ford from the first day, who had clung to him tearfully and mouthed silent apologies when the kids weren’t watching - and for that matter, the Ford that showed up most of the time, who looked at him with obvious affection and always seemed… so proud of him.

The strange part was… as far as he could tell, neither persona was more real than the other.  It is a contradiction and a conundrum wrapped up in one, but it is not a mystery that Stan is at all eager to probe into.  He’s perfectly fine with what he had.  

Stan has a feeling that it had been a long, long time since Stanford Pines had last looked at him with this kind of love and adoration.  

All he knew for sure was that he wanted _more_.

But despite his best (in)efforts, the con - if it could be called that - falls apart the day the kids leave.  

Halfway through the festivities, Ford calls him out to a quiet grassy area under the trees.  He tells Stan, with an inexplicable passion and emotion, about his plans for some kind of research trip at sea.  There’s desperate hope in his brother’s eyes when he hands him a weathered photograph, fuzzy and washed out with age.  

The two boys, their wide grins immortalized in greyscale, are naggingly familiar.  But that’s where his thoughts just… stop.  Though the air of eager expectancy about his brother makes it clear that there is something more to these kids and their half-constructed boat than Stan knew, there’s nothing more he can do than stare blankly at the scene and wish fervently, desperately, for a spark of memory, of Stanley Pines. Of _something_.

It never comes.  But his silence is answer enough, it seems.  

Ford’s expression resolves into a tight grimace of dismay, but he does not look at all surprised.  “You don’t remember, do you.”  

“Hey, uh… Come on, Ford. I told ya.”  Stan lets an easy grin spread across his face, putting his hands up in defense as he went for one last ditch attempt.  “Sure, there’s a coupla details missin’ here and there, but all the important stuff -”

But his brother does not return his joy.  “‘The important stuff,’” Ford repeats, voice small, expression unreadable.  “...Stanley, do you remember _me_?”

Stan balks.  “You can’t be serious, Sixer.  What do ya want me to bring up to prove it to you, huh?  Your twelve PhD’s?  The metal plate in yer head?”  It comes to him suddenly then, and under better circumstances, he would have smirked.  “Or… the time Ma took you to one of those shows in the city she liked so much, and it got just a bit too _scandalous_ for your tastes and ya just -”

“ _Enough_ ,” Ford says firmly, just a bit too quickly to fully pass off his indignation.  “Honestly, Stanley, I was _eight_ , that was hardly appropriate entertainment for a child - and I still don’t understand how _you_ of all people were so invested in those...“  He trails off, shaking his head, but Stan can see clear relief in his eyes.  “That’s sufficient.  I believe you, Stanley.”

“Told ya so.”

“But clearly,” his brother continues, deliberately ignoring his jibe, “there are more than a few details that are escaping your grasp.  I... don’t understand - of all things, the Stan o’ War… It was important to you, I _know_ that.  It was your dream.”  Ford pauses slightly, almost sheepishly.  “...Our dream.  Surely it was a more important part of your life than my - “ He coughs.  “Childhood trauma.”

“I dunno.  Selective memory, maybe?”  Stan throws out with a shrug, careful nonchalance masking the panic that creeps coldly in.  

“It doesn’t make sense.  You clearly remember many details about the niblings, myself - even those employees of yours.  But when it comes to anything to do with yourself...“

Ford pauses.  Stan’s heartbeats suddenly sound very loud in his head.  

His brother looks at him, eyes wide with realization and encroaching horror, and all Stan can do is look away.  “Look, it’s - I’m fine, Ford.  Geez, you didn’t _used_ ta be sucha worrywart… I’m pretty sure.”

“It can’t be,” Ford says softly - to himself, because his expression has gone slack and his face is worryingly pale.  “Stanley, answer me.  What was the name of your first girlfriend?  Of your first car?  ...How much of the last forty years do you remember, apart from the past few months?”

He flinches.  “Ford -”

“You don’t _know_ ,” his brother says flatly.  “You don’t remember.  But how can you be acting like this?  How are you acting so much like _him_?”

“It’s not worth gettin’ worked up about, bro.  And stop talking like that, it’s weird as hell.”

“Stanley.”

“Geez.  Fine,” Stan says with a shake of his head.  “ _Fine_.  Ya got me, Ford - I don’t remember all that much about my own - sad excuse fer a life.  But I’m figurin’ it out, bit by bit.  Besides…”  He grins, a bit too-wide to be completely heartfelt.  “I know what I said.  I remember the important stuff - that’s all I need.”

“Don’t say that, Stanley.   _Please_.”  That shuts him up.  

There is a brief, mutual silence, as Ford paces around and around, worn boots trampling a clear path in the green grass.  He cannot seem to look at Stan without immediately averting his gaze.  “...I’m the one to blame for this.” Ford says finally, hands behind his back.  “I should’ve known that it was all - too good to be true.  I thought that time would fill in the gaps in your memory.  But in reality, I erased my brother, and left someone else picking up the pieces.”

“Alright, you know what?” Stan says after a long, heavy pause.  “Anyone else, I woulda punched in the face for saying something like that.  But I won’t, because I like to think I’m a decent brother.   _Your_ decent brother, you knucklehead.”

“I - didn’t mean it like that, Stanley.”

“Come on, genius.  Use your brain.”  The exasperation he feels is exceedingly familiar, and Stan _really_ shouldn’t be surprised that this has happened before.  Well, something like it, anyways.  “If I wasn’t your brother, who the hell _else_ could I be?”

Ford freezes, clearly shocked by the question.  He opens and closes his mouth before he admits reluctantly, slowly, as if every word is being dragged out of him forcibly by rope and sledge,  “...I don’t know.”

“I - You -” Stan gives up.  “Look, I’m tryin’ my best, alright?  I’m pretty sure all that stuff’s still - in here somewhere  Sure, I’ve been faking some things, but that’s cuz I remember those kids even if I don’t remember much of myself, and -  I’d erase my memory all over again if I had to see them this miserable because of me.  And,” he drags a hand through his raggedy hair, scowling.  “I get it - you want… Stanley back.  I don’t mind that you call me that but - I’m not him.  I’m just Stan.”  

His brother flinches at the confession, and Stan knows right then and there that he is about to assume the absolute worst.  “...You’re right,” Ford says brokenly, his bowed head lending a bit of a pitiful air to him.  “I shouldn’t have expected you to be him, especially when all you had to piece together a - semblance of him were what little we could offer.  But thank you for… keeping it from Dipper and Mabel.  I -”

“Oh for - Have you been listening to anything I’m sayin’?  It’s not like _that._ ”  Stan takes a ragged breath. “On that first day, with Waddles… I wasn’t acting for that. I remembered.  He - _He_ was there, and then... he was gone, just like that.  It just hasn’t happened since.  So… have some patience, alright?  You want your brother back, you’re gettin’ him, soon enough.  Is that good enough for ya, Sixer?”

Ford stares back at him for a long moment, eyes wide, before he bursts into motion.  “Stanley, quick - describe to me what happened, exactly,” he says with undisguised excitement and just a smidge of hope, all air of defeat gone, withdrawing a notebook from - somewhere in his trenchcoat.  “Perhaps if we recreate the conditions, we can stimulate another -”

“Uh,” Stan says blankly  “I don’t know.  I just saw the pig, and then, I wasn’t in control.   _He_ was - Stanley was, I guess.  But I still got to watch and feel everythin’ happening for the, uh, thirty seconds it went on.  Just, my body movin’ by itself was kind of a… weird feeling.  Kinda tingly,” he adds.

Ford flinches at that, almost as if remembering a bad memory, and without writing a single sentence, he slowly tucks his pen and notes back to where they had come.  

“...What’s wrong?”  

His brother regards him with an unreadable expression.  A shadow flits across his face, but it quickly becomes clear that an clarification was not forthcoming. 

“...Anyways,” Stan continues, a bit uncertainly.  “I still remember what it’s like to be - well, to remember everything.  I’ve been tryin’ to find that feeling again, and I kinda know how to act.  But, y’know... it might have actually helped if ya actually _told_ me anythin’ about our past,”  he can’t help but add, just a little bit sulkily.

There it is again, the familiar gritted teeth of guilt.  But Ford surveys him again with that odd mixture of emotions, almost calculatingly, and when he opens his mouth, it is clear that he has made a decision.  

“Stanley, come with me on my research trip,” he says at last.  “...When we were children, we dreamed about sailing the world in search of treasure and adventure.  Now, this might not be - exactly it, but… perhaps it might dislodge a few memories.  Besides, there will be plenty of opportunity for me to tell you what... _I_ know about your past.  ”

Something warm and deep stirs somewhere in Stan’s mind at the mention of treasure and adventure.  He takes it as a good sign, and latches onto it.  “So, no more secrets?”  He asks, a wide, expectant grin spreading on his face.  

Ford looks vaguely uncomfortable, but he nods his head.  “No more secrets,” he agrees.  “I swear, Stanley.”

“Well,” Stan says lightly, “the kids are probably wondering what’s taking us so long out here, and anything that’ll stop you starin’ at me sounds good to me.  It’s a deal, Sixer!”  

He holds out a hand to shake. This time, Ford doesn’t quite manage to hide his flinch.  


	3. taken for turns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, it has been almost two years since I started this fic. The direction of this series has gone through several revisions and rethinks over the years, and I know what I want to do with it now. 
> 
> My version of a happy ending might not be everyone’s, but this /is/ heading somewhere around there. Even when it doesn't seem like it, cough.
> 
> This is the end of this particular leg of the journey - keep an eye on the series for the last bit.

So this is the thing: Stan's been having dreams.

That's already a bad start, all things considered. His brother has a gazillion and one horror stories to tell with that exact beginning, which Stan knows because he had been the unlucky bastard to sit through each new edition of _Stanford Pines' Scary Dimension-Traveling Stories to Tell in the Dark,_ hot off the presses. About a month's worth of them now, updated whenever he and Ford sat on the deck of their boat watching the bright stars that hung above the wine-dark waves of the Pacific Ocean. With the warm end-of-summer winds and the clear skies, that was becoming more and more often.

(He'd never admit it, but he likes it a lot. Just him and Ford and a dozen stories about Ford's encounters with horrifying, grotesque abominations of creation in the wide multiverse. He doesn't remember enough to say for sure, but he thinks it has been a long, long time since Ford trusted him enough to let his guards down entirely for him, like this. It makes him happy, in a way that makes some forgotten part of him _crave_.)

Anyways, the point is: Stan knows that Ford would have a heart attack just at the thought of it.

Actually, no. He'd lock himself in his room for a day or two, coming out only to stare at Stan with big ol' guilty eyes, like he had gotten him some terminal flesh parasite disease or something. And then one day Stan would tell him to just cut it out because look, you really can't avoid someone when you're the only two people on a boat, so how 'bout you sit your ass down and tell me again about the nth time you didn't get with an alien babe?

And _then_ Ford would have a heart attack.

So yeah, that's the reason why he hasn't said anything so far. Part of it, if he had to be honest.

Because, well. The other thing was, he actually kind of likes those dreams.

That sounds bad. He knows it does, which is why he tries not to think about that too often. Doesn't even dare to bring it up with Ford, because he thinks his brother might just combust.

Really, it's just peaceful. In his dreams, he's in a forest, just like the ones in the Pacific Northwest, the ones that surround Gravity Falls and cut it off from the rest of the world in more ways than one. He's not moving at all. He thinks maybe he can't move, but he hasn't tried. The thought just doesn't cross his mind. It doesn't seem like a real possibility.

And it's really kind of nice, because he's just sitting in the forest, admiring the vivid colors of the leaves and waiting for something to change, something that he knows to have nothing to do with the seasons at all. It's a little taste of what home had been for thirty years, even when he and his brother were now hundred of miles away from land.

Not that it's all perfect, because nothing really is. He figures he doesn't have his glasses in his dreams or something, because everything always looks just the slightest bit off in a dizzy kind of way, like he's seeing the world through one eye.

 

* * *

 

He doesn't quite manage to sail all around the whole world with Ford, but they make it down south a decent way before they decide they're both sick of ship's rations and hard cots on aging bones, and spend a few days on shore at a small coastal town in México.

Stan orders their dinner, because while Ford knows something like half a dozen alien languages, he just can't deal with the reflexive pronouns of Spanish.

It just wasn't the way he was used to thinking, Ford admits morosely into a cup of something bright and colorful, which meant it probably had some obscene amount of alcohol. Memorizing vocabulary and tenses were easy, but grammar was logic was thought. He was used to a certain way of viewing the world, a set chronology of people and actions, and changing his fundamental way of thinking - well, that had never been something he could wrap his head around entirely. An entirely different matter from an additional complexity of algebra or deriving some law of physics.

Stan shrugs, and takes another shot of straight tequila. He's on his third, and he's not quite sure if he's feeling it. He hasn't gotten drunk since his brain got erased.

It burns like hell on the way down, but he finds that he's really liking the pain. There's a novelty to the sensation, and an illogical quality to this entire - strange routine that he and Stanford were engaging in that he wanted to laugh and laugh and laugh. It was just so human to pour poison down your gullet, set the glass down, and say with no irony at all, _another, please_!

"Can't say I get it," Stan admits. "Hey, Sixer, you know? In Mandarin Chinese you gotta set the whole stage of a sentence before you say anything actually important. You wanna take a piss? First you hafta figure out the place, the weather, the time -"

Ford eyes him. "Just how many languages do you know, Stanley?" He asks.

"Dunno. A lot. It's not that big of a deal. When you go to a lot of places and you meet a lot of people, you have to pick up a few languages to make sure they don't end up screwing you over."

"Well, it's a big deal to me," Ford says. "That's an impressive ability to have, Stanley. It means you have a talent for thinking on the fly and adapting to new situations. You have to really understand human thought to navigate it in that way."

"Ha," Stan scoffs, trying hard not to let his lips curve up into a pleased smile. "Don't think I don't see you trying to butter me up, Sixer."

Regardless, it's working. Stan had never - well, he _thought_ he had never - thought much about his ability for languages, just because it had always seemed so intuitive. Why did it matter in what order information was conveyed, or who was doing what to whom, or a dozen, hundred other fiddly bits when he knew exactly what was going on at the core of things? It seemed so static, so _limiting_ to think in a way that was so fixated on the details.

But Ford found it _impressive_. He thought it was a _talent_.

And, if Stan wasn't mistaken... he seemed proud. Of _him_.

"Hey," Stan says, leaning a bit closer. "You wanna test just how many languages I know? Start countin'."

So he just keeps spitting them out, hello's and random words that pop up in his head, as many as he can think of. Ford puts down all twelve fingers within a minute, and has to wrap around.

In hindsight, it's a mistake. Stan's so focused on impressing Ford that he entirely misses when his brother's expression turns from pleasant surprise to neutral shock to a sharp kind of concern, and then, on the eighteenth, to a suspicious kind of worry.

"What language was the last one?" Ford asks calmly, and Stan knows him well enough to know that it is with the specific note of calm that his brother had in his voice only when he wasn't really, not in any way.

He's not sure. "Uh," he says, "Swahili, I think. Why?"

It's not Swahili. He knows that because he knows Swahili, too.

"That's not Swahili."

Stan smiles uncomfortably. "Huh, yeah. You're right. Dunno how I mixed that one up. I, uh, don't actually know what language that is. I must've picked the phrase up somewhere, just stuck in my memory."

"I know that language," Ford says, and there's something in his eyes that makes Stan go quiet. "It's from the planet Tixchenfanuh, located several million lightyears from this solar system. It's been dead for thousands of years."

"Oh. Cool."

"Stanley, how on Earth do you know a dead alien language?"

He had no reply to that. "I don't remember," he says, and maybe it's a low blow to use that but he really doesn't _know_. "Maybe I just picked it up somewhere, it could happen."

"No," Ford says flatly, shaking his head. "No, it couldn't."

There's something about that, that makes Stan bristle. "Then how do _you_ know it, huh?"

"From a friend," his brother says guardedly. "One who has lived for millennia, and had harbored many refugees from the worlds that perished under Bill's domination."

And, yeah. That was it. Ford had said the name, which meant that he wasn't even trying to be subtle anymore.

"You think it's a Bill thing," Stan says flatly.

"I'm not saying it has to do with Bill," his brother says quickly. But he has always been a terrible liar, ol' Fordsy.

They're quiet for a moment, the two of them and their respective poisons. It's a stifling kind of silence, the flat kind that's familiar in the worst kind of way, the kind that makes Stan want to get up and break something, shout at the top of his lungs so he can breathe again.

He doesn't do that. "I'm sorry, Sixer," he says instead, because he doesn't know what else to do. "I just remember things. I don't know where they come from. I, uh. I take what I can get."

Ford picks up his bright, colorful drink and starts chugging. When he's done, he wipes at his mouth and looks at Stan with an expression he can't read.

"I think it would be a good idea," Ford says steadily, "if you told me what exactly you remember."

 

* * *

 

The sea waves are slow and soft today, washing darkly onto the side of the _Stan o' War_ and never getting farther than a few inches before receding. The breeze is brisk without being cold, with a cool saltiness to it that makes Stan lick his lips again and again and again. There's the soft flap of wings somewhere in the starry sky, and he wonders distantly how birds could ever find their way home when they spent so much of their lives that far from the ground.

It really is a perfect evening. Stan says so out loud.

"I wonder if we could ever have imagined this for ourselves," Ford replies, eyes looking up, up, up. "When we were young, and the future felt like it would never come."

Stan doesn't know. He doesn't remember. So he sits there and pretends that that's fine, like he has for the past three months.

They start off with the easy stuff.

He tells Ford about accidentally pickpocketing the keys to the ship's cabin from him a couple weeks back, and only noticing when one dug painfully into his right buttock when he squatted down to tie a knot. He tells him about waking up and hearing the last fading notes of piano music, about waking up and just really craving toffee peanuts. And there was once, he says to Ford after thinking for a long while, when he woke up to the darkness of the main cabin and remembered, with uncomfortable clarity, what it was like to be trapped in a place with no light and no way out. Only the sound of his own furious screams in his ears, and something burning and terrible certainty that he would escape, he _would_ , no matter what he had to do.

Then there's a pretty ridiculous caper he had just remembered about a week ago, and almost decided to write all of it down until he remembered he probably didn't want anything on paper that would incriminate him in a court of law. He had gone through with it back in the day, and it had involved a dozen pugs and an especially furious hotelier. He tells Ford about it, and something unwinds and relieves within him at the slight upwards curve of his brother's lips.

For a while, Stan rambles about a flat world with flat minds, of rules and restrictions, where difference was feared and creativity even more so. There's something that bothers him about it, that sets his teeth on edge. He gets really emotionally into it before Ford tells him that he's pretty sure that was just the plot of that show he used to watch obsessively, _The Duchess Approves_.

It is with a pause that he tells his brother that sometimes, he remembers facts that don't make sense. He knows that they're true, so says that feeling nestled deep in his gut. He just doesn't know how they could be.

"Like what?" Ford says, like he's dreading the answer.

"Do you hate me?" Stan asks. His fingers hurt from digging into the wood of the ship's deck.

His brother makes a strangled kind of noise, somewhere between surprise and discomfort. "Stanley, I - " He says, and his voice sounds so small. "No. No, of course I don't. I never did."

"Huh."

"Why," Ford breathes, tries again. "Why do you ask?"

"I think I did something bad. Not like the, screwing up on the anchor knot and making us swim a hundred meters into the ocean at midnight, kind of bad." He feels cold, suddenly, like the wind is blowing right through his layers and into his bones. "I think I did something bad enough that you didn't forgive me for it, and there was nothin' I could say to get you to change your mind."

His brother doesn't reply at first, and by the light of the lantern Stan can see the muscles of his jaw working at something that he couldn't get out.

"You made a mistake," Ford says at last. "You were young, and you made a mistake, and for a while, I thought I hated you for it. But I didn't, and it took me too long to realize that." He bows his head a bit, and then he says, "I'm sorry, Stanley."

Stan hears him, but he doesn't know what to say. There's something in him that's honestly, well, freaking the fuck out. He's caught somewhere between shock and disbelief and a strange warm sensation he didn't know how to put into words, and he _doesn't know why_. He feels like an actor thrown into the middle of a scene he hadn't had the chance to prepare for.

"I never had the chance to tell you before, so I'm telling you now," Ford continues rapidly, like he can't believe he's saying it either. "I'm sorry I ever thought that that was enough reason to hate you."

"I'm sorry too," Stan says, and that is the one thing he can think of saying that doesn't come out like a memorized line. There's a certainty in it that he didn't know he had.

He's remembering something, more like splotches of paint on a canvas than anything at all clear and defined. They're emotions more than thoughts, but on some strange level he knows that they're completely and utterly his.

"I think I hated you," he continues. "For a real long time."

Ford flinches, but he's not done, not even close.

"If you hadn't left, we could've had everything we ever wanted. But nothing I said could convince you to stay, not even a bit." He's quiet for a long moment. "I think I was angry. I think - I think I wanted to make you hurt, the way I did."

He hears his brother swallow. "Stanley..."

"But you came back."

Ford is quiet. "You brought me back," he corrects.

That was right, except where it wasn't.

"I think I was happy, then," Stan says. "I think I was happier than I had been for years and years and years. With you back, everything was right again. I don't know how I could've ever been so angry, before."

He leans back, both hands on the wooden board of the deck, and listens to his brother's soft breathing against the slow sound of the waves.

"It sounds like," Ford says slowly, "there's a lot we need to work out. Not just about your memories."

They sit there in silence for a long moment, looking into the darkness of the vanishing horizon. All at once, it doesn't seem so comforting anymore.

He thinks about the warm rays of the summer sun and how the trees of Oregon cast dim shade on ground that could have never seen the sun, and he feels suddenly, painfully homesick. There's some part of him that wants desperately to be back there, something pulling him back even though he knows the kids are at school and Soos is probably busy making the Mystery Shack his own.

Stan says, voice distant to his own ears, "Ford, let's go home."

 

* * *

 

That night, Stan doesn't dream of the forest again. Instead, he's in a room that he recognizes immediately, because it was here where his first clear memories began, all those months ago. But here and now, the living room of the Mystery Shack is at once entirely familiar and utterly strange, as if he was seeing it from the perspective of someone else.

There’s a man with yellow eyes sitting on the couch. He's staring at the television, idly bouncing a paddleball in his hand, a can of Pitt Cola grasped tight in the other. There's something familiar about his features, about his lantern jaw, the easy way in which his square frames settle on the bulbous rise of his nose.

When Stan walks in, he looks down at him like he's been expecting him.

"Hey, pal," the man says with a wry smile. "It's funny how things work out, yeah?"

"Uh," he says, and takes a wobbly step forward on legs that feel too short.

"Why don't ya take a seat?" The man snaps his fingers.

And then he's sitting, just like that. The cushion of the chair hugs his butt just like the one back in the Shack. It feels a lot bigger, though.

"Glad ya dropped by," says the other. "See, I've been meanin' to talk to you for a while now. I was gettin' a bit worried that you wouldn't ever show up."

Stan has no idea what's going on. He looks into slitted, yellow eyes and that really should be explanation enough, except it isn't.

"Who are you?" Stan asks.

"I'm Stanley Pines," says the stranger who isn't. It doesn't make any sense, except it does. "Thought that'd be obvious."

He grins, and there's something vicious about it.

"So the real question here, buddy, is - who are _you_?"

**Author's Note:**

> psst. take a look at the line-up of the three chapter titles


End file.
